Twenty-one members chosen by secret ballot: how the law of the sea Tribunal at Hamburg is put together

Background

The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, usually written ITLOS, rests on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and is the court the Convention's States Parties turn to over disputes about how that Convention is read and applied. Its bench carries 21 independent members, and the States Parties elect them by secret ballot. A State Party may put forward not more than two candidates, who must be of recognised competence in the law of the sea, and no two members of the Tribunal may be nationals of one and the same State. The bench has to reflect the world's principal legal systems and an equitable spread of geography, and no fewer than three members come from each of the five regional groups the General Assembly works with. A term lasts nine years, re-election is allowed, and the terms of a third of the members fall due every three years. The Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, in Germany, is the seat; it was picked by secret ballot on 21 August 1981 by States at the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, and article 1, paragraph 2, of the Statute records that choice. Germany, the host State, built the permanent premises and gives them rent-free; they were opened on 3 July 2000, and the main courtroom also serves the Seabed Disputes Chamber.